


to define a stranger

by turning_saints



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, One Shot, Phan - Freeform, Phan Fluff, Slow Burn, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 00:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17355143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turning_saints/pseuds/turning_saints
Summary: Phil Lester is a high school student at Kellbridge High, and his whole life is perfect. Oh wait. Except a couple things. For one, he has yet to find his soulmate, who keeps leaving blue flowers on his wrists. And two, he sleepwalks every night to a place he's never been before. But everything changes when a new kid comes to town.*based on a prompt where when you get injured, tattoos of flowers show up on your soulmate's body*





	to define a stranger

**Author's Note:**

> *based on a prompt where when you get injured, tattoos of flowers show up on your soulmate's body*

I look around and stumble. My knees wobble. How did I get here? I am surrounded by trees, and from the distant trickling of water that I can hear, I assume that there’s a river nearby. Everything is dark, and the trees crash against one another above me, pushed to collide by the wind. I look down, and I notice that I am wearing my pajama pants and old Abbey Road t-shirt.  
“Phil! Phil! Where are you?”  
I jump, hearing a voice call out my name in the night, and turn around to see my brother, lit up by the light of his flashlight. Martyn's face is stark white against the black of his sweater and our surroundings, but his brown eyes are twinkling with confidence and bravery, and by the tight, harsh firmness of his jawline, I can tell that he is not pleased with me.  
“Oh! Thank god I found you,” he says, the anger in his face softening a little bit. What trouble have I caused now? “You really went far this time.”  
“It happened again didn’t it? Where am I? Are Mom and Dad worried?” I rush out, realizing all of a sudden what must have happened.  
“Yeah, we really do need to talk about this habit that you have. We’re about five miles from the house, and no, that’s why I’m out here alone. Mom and Dad don’t know. I couldn’t wake them again. This is the second time this week, Phil! You said you would be better!” His eyes are slightly red as if he's been crying, and I feel an immediate surge of shame. I need to take control of this.  
“I’m sorry! I closed my door and locked it, made sure all of the doors to the outside were the same, and I even tied my sheets on my bed really tight, so it would be harder to get out. I must have just been really persistent tonight. I am so sorry, Martyn.”  
Martyn sighs, his face still the color of chalk. “It’s not just that, Phil. It’s creepy! Have you noticed that you always go on this same path? And this time you got really far. What if you had hit the river? Or fell into a ditch? Then how would I find you?” We turn and start walking down the path where Martyn had come from, and he grabs my arm as if to prevent me from walking away again.  
“I can’t control what I do in my sleep. It is creepy, but it’s just what’s happening. I’m sorry.” I say, and I do mean it. It’s unfair that Martyn has to get up in the night to control my mad sleepwalking, and then go to school tired as a result of it.  
“Forget it, Phil. Let’s just go home. It’s late.” We walk in silence from then, until we can see the distant light of the front porch lamp at home.  
“Now, Phil, remember--”  
“I know, watch the cat, make no noise, and under no circumstances,”  
“Wake Mom and Dad up.” He finishes, and we make our separate ways, him to his bedroom window on the left, mine on the right. I slide open the glass, making sure to prevent squeaking, and slip into my bedroom and under my covers, hopefully, I can get a couple hours of sleep before dawn. 

The next morning, I wake up to the persistent beeping of my alarm clock and look around my bedroom. Everything seems normal, and I feel relieved as I get out of bed, and get ready for school. It’s only when leaving my room that I notice something peculiar. My bedroom door is still locked.  
“Martyn,” I say, calling down the hallway to the kitchen where he sits, eating cereal.  
“What do you want?” He mumbles back, getting up and coming over to where I’m standing.  
“Did you by any chance lock my door after I went to bed last night? You know, to make sure I didn’t wander again?” My voice has dropped to a whisper so that my parents don’t hear us talking.  
“No, I didn’t. Why?” He lowers his voice as well, and turns so that he faces me and the wall.  
“It was locked when I woke up.”  
“I wonder how you got out then? Phil, we really need to find out what’s going on with you.”  
I take a deep breath in, and answer, “I know. I guess I went through the window last night. Anyway, thanks. I gotta go. School.” I brush past her and head straight out the door to the bus stop.  
As I stand, waiting for the bus, I feel a light pressure on my wrist, and I look down to see a small flower appear, slowly gaining one petal, then another and another, until a little blue amaryllis is standing out against my pale skin. The flower is just beneath my watch, directly in the center of my wrist.  
My head droops, and I fall onto a nearby bench, watching as more amaryllises appear beside and below the first. I know what this is. It happens every week or so, but the blue blossoms take several days to fade.  
I hear the metallic sound of the bus screeching to my stop, and I grab my bag from where it has fallen on the ground, and hurry onto the bus.  
I try not to think too much at school, and despite hastily avoiding a conversation with my slightly annoying but well-meaning friend Cat, as she tries to pester me for math homework answers. I get through the day more or less without incident, and I choose to walk home instead of taking the bus where I would definitely have to endure the insanity of my grade, and the endless torrent of people asking me about my new flowers. That is a subject that I wouldn’t like to think about, let alone talk about.  
I quietly unlock the front door of my gray house, and go inside.  
“How was school, Phil?” calls my mom, walking from the kitchen out to the hall where I was walking in the door.  
“Normal, I guess.”  
“Well, you look really tired. Did you get an okay sleep last night?” I know the question that she’s really asking; I can see it on her face. “Yes, I slept fine.” I don’t want her to know about my little sleepwalking adventure last night, she’ll worry, and I definitely don’t want that. I slip past her down the hall to my room, and collapse on my bed as the torrent of emotions crashes down on me.  
I lie on my green bedspread, as the numbness takes over. This happens sometimes, when flowers appear on my wrists, and I’ve had enough. This is the second time this week. I shut down, and it’s easier not to think, but when the numbness happens, I have to. I know she’s out there. Somewhere. But I don’t know where.  
The worst part is that she’s hurting.  
I rest my head on my pillow, and I can feel the numbness ebbing and flowing like waves in the ocean outside of my window. I spend too much and too little time thinking about it. Most guys think of it all the time, it’s all they ever talk about. Which is natural, it is Soulmates after all. The one person that’s supposed to show up and make your life perfect. Only one couple in my school, Kellbridge High, have found their Soulmate, and that’s Charlie Casey and Stacy Brooks, who are seniors that everyone is jealous of, including me.  
I try not to think about her. It makes me hope too much. Everyone knows that there is an extremely high chance of meeting your Soulmate because there is some sort of force that pulls them to each other, but I can’t help but worry that if I think about her too much, I’ll never find her.  
Generally, the only reason that a person wouldn’t find their Soulmate is if one of them dies prematurely. I’ve always ruled out that possibility, but now that these flowers are popping up more and more often, I begin to wonder if maybe I won’t meet her after all.  
There is one more reason that I could not find my Soulmate, and it is something that I have always worried about. Some very rare people do not have a Soulmate at all, but instead, they have a Stranger. A Stranger is, like a Soulmate, a person that is destined to have a big role in your life, but instead of a positive one, they are supposed to be your enemy. The one person you will always clash with.  
I’ve always worried about having a Stranger because knowing my luck, one of those really rare people would be me. But that’s not something I need to think about right now. I have other things to worry about.  
I stand up, the numbness receding a little, and I walk over and sit down at my desk, running a hand through my short hair and gazing out the window.  
The flowers on my arm have already started fading, but I know it will be days before they are gone completely.  
I look out across the lawn out to the ocean that I can see in the distance. I picture her on the other side, hurting, but looking for me.  
“I will find you,” I whisper, and it’s like I can see the words carry across the ocean, and start to heal her scars. “I promise.”

It is only during second period the next day that I am shaken, quite literally, out of whatever world my mind is in. I look around to where Cat is violently tugging on my arm in rhythm with her ever so consistent, “Phil. Phil. Phil. Phil.” I sigh, and even though I would rather not respond, I know from experience that if I simply do not engage, she will continue the incessant nagging until I either give in or die of malnutrition due to the fact that she will not let me move.  
“Hullo, Cat.”  
“You are never going to guess what I just heard from Annabelle,” she says, and pulls her chair up to my desk, and it is another one of those times where I wonder if she tries to be this loud on purpose, or if she was unfortunately born that way.  
“What is it this time?” Louise is a friend of Cat's and her only source of gossip.  
Cat lowers her voice and leans on her palms across the desk, and I instinctively lean closer to her as well, to hear whatever news she has. “You didn’t hear this from me, but apparently there’s a new kid coming to school. I only just heard this from Louise, who heard it from Jessica, who heard it from Taylor, whose older brother works at a real estate agency that just sold a house to a family with a kid who is starting school here!” She pauses to take a deep breath, the information is clearly too much for any rational being to handle. “Taylor’s brother never got to actually see the family, but he got the name, which is all that matters.” Cat then sits back in her seat, and it becomes apparent to me that she’s only going to tell me the name if I ask for it. Generally, I wouldn’t care, but for the little town of Kellbridge, a new student is pretty exciting, so I’ll play along.  
“Fine, what’s the name?” I ask, and Cat immediately perks up in her seat, leaning forward across my desk again to whisper loudly in my ear.  
“Dannielle Howell.”  
Before her lips even stop saying that name, I feel an electric shock shoot up my spine and I sit straight up in my seat. What just happened? I’ve never felt anything like that before, but I think I have an idea of what it is. I have to get out of here. “C-cool, Cat,” I say as I stand up from my desk, and while hastily shoving my books into my bag, I flee the room, paying no attention to my teacher, who shouts “Phil!” after me.  
I sprint down the hall and into the nearest bathroom, and after locking the door, I lean with my hands on the sink, looking at my pale, shocked face in the mirror.  
“What the heck is going on?” I wonder out loud.

I stare down at my hands, and I am not surprised to see that they are shaking. My breaths are short and shallow, and my whole body feels like it’s on fire.  
That name.  
Something about that name triggered something in me, and I immediately know what I have to do. I run out of the bathroom as the bell rings, signifying the end of second period. I race down the hall as kids come pouring out of their classes, and I am searching every face, trying to find the right one.  
Then, suddenly, I see him. Charlie Skies, with Stacy Brooks trailing behind him. I’m not surprised by this, because the two rarely ever leave each other’s sides.  
“Charlie!” I call, and I see his head turn in my direction. “I need to talk to you!”  
He starts walking toward me, with Stacy in tow. “‘Sup, Phil?”  
“Can we talk for a second?” I say, hoping he can’t hear the urgency in my voice.  
“Uh, yeah, sure, what’s up?” He answers.  
“Alone?” I say, and not my head and smile at Stacy, trying to politely tell her to leave.  
“Dude, what’s so important that you can’t say it in front of her?” He furrows his brow, and I can tell that if I don’t talk soon, I’ll have another problem on my hands.  
“Please,” I say, and Charlie must have been able to see the panic in my face, because he quietly leans over to Stacy and says, “I’ll catch up with you in third period, babe.”  
She walks off and he turns to me. “So what’s going on?”  
“Come with me.” I grab his arm and pull him into the boy’s bathroom that’s off the hall.  
“What the heck Phil! What’re you doing?” He exclaims as I let go of his sleeves and he backs into the sink.  
“When you first met Stacy what did it feel like?” I say, and he gets a confused look on his face.  
“Wha- I don’t- Why-” He stutters, and I take a forceful step towards him.  
“Charlie, you need to listen to me and answer my question right now. When you met Stacy for the first time, what did it feel like?”  
“Okay, okay! Well, when I first met Stacy it felt like coming home, but I guess you know that. Practically the whole school knows the story. That wasn’t the interesting part.”  
“What was the interesting part, then?” I say.  
“When I first heard her name-”  
I gasp and take a step back.  
“What?” Charlie says, confusion written all over his face.  
“Nothing! Nothing! Just- keep going.” I lean against the sink, listening intently.  
“O-okay, well when I first hear her name, a friend was telling me about her, and I wasn’t really paying attention, but then, when he said her name, the weirdest thing happened.”  
“What was it?” I say, abandoning all attempts of stopping the eagerness from creeping into my voice. “What happened?”  
“My face got red, and I felt hot and cold all over, but the weirdest thing was that I felt this rush of energy shoot up my spine, that left me tingling.” He says, “It almost felt like-”  
“Lightning,” We say this at the same time, and before he can see the little color I have regained drain from my face, I bolt out of the bathroom, the sound of the door slamming behind me covering the sound of Charlie's indignant, “Phil, what the-?”  
I run down the hallway with my bag swinging wildly on my arm, and I duck past the security desk and run out the front doors of the school. 

When I finally stop running, I realize that I have somehow found myself back in the place I had sleepwalked to, two nights before. In daylight, I could see that it really was a beautiful place. The sunlight shone on the little brook that was happily bubbling past, casting shadows and figures of sunlight across the whole clearing. The grass was soft, and small flowers could be seen poking through it. The clearing was framed with maple trees, their leaves the lightest green.  
A little heaven, all to myself.  
I sit down in the grass and lean up against a tree. I rest my head back on the bark, and allow my thoughts to enter my brain.  
I’ve found her. Finally. Now I just need to find her.  
My Soulmate, the one who has occupied my mind since I knew what a Soulmate was. The girl who will complete my life. The girl I will spend my life with. The hurting girl. Danielle.  
Danielle Howell.  
The hurting girl.  
But not for long, I tell myself. When I find her, it’ll be okay. I’ll heal her, and she’ll heal me. I know it.  
That night, as I climb into bed and pull the covers over me, it occurs to me that I will be the second person in my school to have found my Soulmate. That means everyone will be all over Danielle and me for at least a month. More, for Louise. God, she’ll be insufferable.  
As I lie in the dark, in the safety of my room with the door and windows bolted shut, I realize that I don’t care what negative or positive attention I’ll get, as long as I have Danielle. With Danielle beside me, I can face anything. 

The wind jolts me awake. I’m in the forest. It’s happened again. I’m in the same place I was earlier today, except it’s the middle of the night.  
The moon casts strange shadows on the ground, the trees look like they are reaching out to me. The wind against the branches sounds like it’s laughing. I feel as though I’m being watched. I feel eyes on the back of my head, and I whip around only to see trees and darkness.  
Something is very wrong.  
Why this place? The very place I came this afternoon? The same place I sleepwalked to two nights ago? What’s so important about this grove of trees? I sit down on the grass again and hope that Martyn doesn’t realize I’ve gone. I don’t want to worry him. I lay down on the grass, and I feel myself dozing off again.  
“Ouch!”  
I jolt awake, and before I realize I’m awake, I’m on my feet, looking around wildly for the source of the noise.  
It’s not that hard, because after about five seconds, a person crashes through the trees, and falls into my clearing.  
“Hello?” I say, and the person jumps, and starts to get to their feet.  
He’s a tall boy, about 3 inches taller than my five feet nine inches. He has deep brown hair, and from what I can see in the dark, his eyes are dark green.  
“Oh my god, I am so sorry. I’m such an idiot. Sorry.” He blurts out, straightening up and brushing off his (admittedly tattered) clothes.  
“What are you sorry for?” I say gently, concealing my shock and surprise.  
“I- Well- This is your property is it? And I just like- barged in, and interrupted whatever you were doing in the dark- And now I’m being rude. Shit. I’m sorry.” The boy winces, as if actually cringing over what he just said, which is understandable. I’ve never heard someone speak so fast.  
“No, seriously, it’s fine. I didn’t mean to be here either, and this isn’t my property. I just sleepwalked here, as embarrassing as that is. I assumed this was your property, but I guess you were just walking through the woods and got scared by me. If anyone has to apologize, it’s me.” I say, and I lean back against the tree, to show him that I am relaxed and he should be as well, but quite the contrary happens.  
“Wait- Uh- You sleepwalked here? I don’t mean to intrude, um, but the only reason I’m here is that I sleepwalked.” He sits down on the grass but still looks tense.  
I walk over and sit near him. “That’s so weird. What are the odds of two guys sleepwalking to the exact same spot, on the same night, and meeting each other?”  
“Strange.”  
There’s a long pause, and then the boy speaks again.  
“If you, um, don’t mind me asking, what’s your name? I’m not from around here, so I really don’t know anyone.”  
“Not from around here, huh?” I guess there are a bunch of people moving here for the new school year next year. “That’s cool. Well, I’m Phil Lester. Nice to meet y-”  
Before I can finish my sentence, the boy is on his feet. He looks panicked, and by the moonlight, I can see that he is flushed.  
“What’s wrong?” I ask, and a strange thought comes into my mind. His face looks like mine did when I first heard my Soulmate’s name. But- that’s- that’s impossible. No.  
“Oh! Um, nothing. I just- uh- thought I heard something in the woods,” He lies, and I wonder, for the second time tonight, what the hell is going on. The boy sits back down across from me in the grass.  
“Okay. Well, anyway, what’s your name?” I ask, and I really am curious. Maybe he goes to my school.  
“It’s, uh, it’s Dan Howell.”  
Now I’m on my feet, and scrambles to get up as well. “What did you say?” I stutter out. This must be a trick. Louise must have put him up to this. There is no way this could happen.  
“My name is Dan Howell.”  
“N-no it’s not. No. It’s not.”  
“Yes? It is?”  
I stumble backward. This can’t be happening. The trees are closing in on me, the wind is blowing and laughing, laughing, laughing at me. Dan puts his hand on my arm.  
“Phil- are you alright?” His voice is soft and caring, worried.  
“Get off of me! Get away!” I yell, and start running, running again. I hear him start after me, but I am too fast, weaving in between the trees, losing myself in the darkness.  
A Stranger.  
I have a Stranger. Not a Soulmate.  
I’ve only heard unreliable folk tales about this. The statistics are, like, one in a million. It is extremely rare, but it happens. Instead of a Soulmate, a person will have a Stranger, which is the opposite. A person that, instead of loving forever, you will hate forever. An enemy. And somehow, I got landed with one. A Stranger. I can’t- don’t want to believe it.  
I rip open my window, not caring if my parents and sister hear, because who cares.  
My life just got torn apart. 

I skip school the next day, telling my mother I am sick. I lie in bed until I hear her car leaving the driveway, and then I spring out of bed. I need to go back to the clearing.  
When walking through the trees, it seems a lot farther than it did last night, but when I reach the clearing, all is the same except for one thing.  
There is a note on the ground that has two sentences;

 

Phil,  
For whatever I did, I’m sorry.  
Please, meet me back here today, anytime, and we can talk through what we both know happened.  
-Dan

I had only just finished reading the note when I heard movement behind me, and once again, Dan stepped through the trees.  
“Hi,” He said, and nothing about that word should have made me as angry as it did. And then I remembered. Strangers. Right.  
“What do you want?” I snapped at him.  
“Just- to talk. I know you’re angry, but please. Sit- sit down with me. I just want to talk this through, because we both know what happened.” He sits down on the grass, and motions for me to sit with him. Grudgingly, I do.  
“Fine. You first.”  
“O-okay. Well, when you said your name, I had this shooting feeling up my spine, and I knew what was going on, for me at least. And then, whe- when I said your name, and it caused that reaction, I knew you felt it too.” He blushes as if he’s embarrassed to talk about it.  
“And you knew we were Strangers.”  
“Strangers. Uh- yeah.”  
“This really sucks, you know? I just- I wanted a Soulmate. A girl, who I could spend my life with, falling in love with over and over again. And now I don’t have that. I’m stuck with a Stranger.” I said, and I let a little bit of the sadness pour into my voice.  
“I’m sorry.” He fidgets with the right sleeve of his sweatshirt, and I myself grab my own right arm, remembering the flowers there, and how they hadn’t faded yet.  
“There’s nothing either of us could do, Dan.” It hurts to say his name.  
“I should go, Phil. I have to prepare for school tomorrow. My first day.”  
“You’re going to my school?” I know that’ll just make it harder for me, having to see him in class every day.  
“Yeah. Sorry.”  
“It’s alright,” I say, and I mean it. There’s nothing he could have done.  
I get up to leave, and he does too. But as I’m walking away from the clearing, I hear him call out; “Phil!”  
“Yeah?” I say back, and turn my head to look back at him.  
“Meet me here tomorrow? After school?” His voice sounds hopeful, but I just turn around and keep walking out of the woods.  
As he’s walking away, somehow I know he’s smiling. He knows I’ll be here tomorrow. 

The next day was all of a blur, the entire student body going crazy to meet the new kid. I stayed away from all of the drama, and just focusing on class.  
After school, I head out to the clearing, but when I get there, it’s empty. I stay for about five minutes, and as I’m turning away to walk back to my house, I hear Dan call out.  
“Phil!”  
“Hello.”  
“Oh, god, I couldn’t find the clearing, and then I thought you’d left, and, fuck, I was so worried!” He’s talking fast again, his eyes darting around frantically.  
I laugh. “Calm down, Dan, you’re good. You found me.”  
We sit down in our usual seats, and we talk.  
This pattern continues for weeks; school, woods, Dan, home. I become accustomed to seeing Dan after school, and I begin to look forward to it.  
Is that normal? He is my Stranger, after all. Aren’t we supposed to hate each other?  
When I brought the subject up to Dan after school one day, he said, “I don’t know. I haven’t heard of any other Strangers we can ask. But, you know, why don’t we just go with it?”  
And so, we go with it. One happy week turns into another happy week, and then happy months are going by, and now it’s spring, not fall. I love our talks, and I can open up to him more than anyone else. I feel comfortable in his presence.  
Which is why, of course, everything had to go wrong.  
One day in late May, I walked into our clearing to see Dan, not sitting on the grass, as he usually is, but kneeling by the stream.  
I walk over to him and rest my hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” I say, and he stands up, and faces me.  
“I’ve- I’ve had a thought.” He says, and he looks nervous. He looks like he did the first night I met him, apprehensive, afraid.  
“Okay, hit me.”  
“You know how we’re Strangers, right?” He says, and fidgets with his sleeve. I’ve been happy to see that the flowers on my arm are faded, and it’s been months since new ones appeared.  
“Yeah, duh.”  
“And how Strangers supposedly hate each other for life?”  
“Um, yes, of course. Dan, where is this going?” He flinches when I say his name.  
“But we’ve been happy.”  
“Of course we have, you’re my best friend.”  
“That’s my point, Philly. We-we aren’t supposed to be best friends. We aren’t even supposed to be friends.” He takes a deep breath, and I know he’s about to tell me why he’s been acting so strange. “Phil, I don’t think we’re Strangers.”  
“What?? Of course we’re Strangers! I felt lightning when I heard your name! You did too! There’s no other explanation.” I am not going to let myself hope that my Soulmate is out there again. I can’t do that to myself.  
“No- Phil, I don’t think we’re Strangers. I think we’re Soulmates.” He turns away from me, and I can tell he’s about to cry. “I think we made a mistake. I think we’re meant to be together, but not in the way we thought we were.”  
“No. No. No! Dan, I’m not- not- like that! I don’t- You’re wrong. You’re wrong!” It makes sense. The lightning, the friendship, the reason we don’t hate each other, the sleepwalking, the flowers. But- I can’t. I’m not like that. So it must not be true.  
“No, Phil. I’m right,” He says this sadly, as if he knows what my reaction will be.  
And it’s that action, that sadness, that makes me lose it. “YOU’RE WRONG!!” I scream, and I leave, I run out of the forest like I have before, and I know he won’t follow me, and I’m glad.  
I get home and collapse on my bed.  
However, as per usual, it’s only after I’ve gone to bed that the real problems start. 

I wake up to a searing pain in my left arm. I jump out of bed and turn on my light and look down. Flowers are appearing on my forearm, first in horizontal lines, then in vertical ones, then they just flow downwards, like blood, until my whole arm is covered. I lift up my shirt, and there are flowers there, too, and on my thighs, and I know what has happened.  
I throw on some sneakers, and before anyone can hear me or realize I’ve gone, I’m out my window and sprinting into the forest.  
I know where he’ll be.  
I arrive at the clearing and sure enough, there he is.  
Lying on the ground, the grass below him is stained red, and he looks as though he’s teetering on the edge of consciousness.  
“Phil..?” He whispers softly, trying to lift his head off the ground, but the look on his chalk-white face told me he’s not able to. “I’m- I’m sorry.”  
“No no no, no no!” I say and fall to the ground next to him. “Dan, don’t do this to me! Don’t leave me like this!” I need to find a way to save him.  
I don’t care how.  
Let me die.  
Just let him live.  
He deserves life so much more than I do, he is honest and true, and knows who he is and loves life, and he loves the way the sun touches the grass, and the noise the water sounds in the creek as it hits the rocks, and the noise of the leaves rustling together. He loves poetry but never writes it, he loves swimming, and singing, and running, and me. He loves me.  
He. Loves. Me.  
And, I love him.  
“Dan, please, please don’t go. Please. I love you.” And as I say those three words, I know them to be true. I love everything about him, and I have for a long time. Which is why he can’t die now.  
I look down and gasp. As I have been thinking, my hands have started glowing. They are glowing blue, and somehow I know what to do.  
I lift up Dan's shirt, and press my hands to the cuts there, and as I watch, the skin knits itself back together, and the blood starts to transform. It seeps into his sin, into his very pores, and instead of staying red, it begins to change and take form. Bursting on the surface of his skin are blue amaryllises. They cover his chest, and begin creeping up to his arms, and down to his thighs, where they heal the cuts there, and the amaryllises spread until his body is covered.  
Then, just like that, they faded.  
And Dan wakes up.  
“Philly?” He asks groggily, sitting up. “What happened?”  
That stupid nickname he used for me was all I needed to attack him. I knock him back to the ground and hug him. I am sobbing, but at this point, I don't care. Dan is alive.  
“Phil! What’s going on?”  
“You! Stupid! Asshole!” I hit him lightly with my fists to accentuate each word. “Do you have any idea what you just put me through?”  
“Well. I know what I tried to do.”  
“You’re damn right you do, and if you ever do it again, I’ll heal you and the murder you myself!” I exclaim, sitting up and pulling him up to sit across from me.  
“Heal me? You healed me? I thought that was a legend. A myth!” He said, confused.  
“Well you should thank god it’s not a myth, Dan, ‘cause I just saved your ass with it.”  
There was a long pause.  
“I’m sorry, Phil.”  
“It’s alright.”  
“No- I mean for what I said earlier. About being Soulmates. I must have been wrong. I’m sorry.” He sounds sad again.  
“Hey, Dan?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Shut up.”  
“Why? I’m trying to apologize! I was wrong. I know you hate me, and that’s why we’re Strangers. That’s why. We could never be Soulmates! You hate me!” I can tell he’s holding back tears, and I get angry.  
“For Pete’s sake, Dan. I freaking wish that you could have been wrong about something in your life, but obviously, you’re not. Now I’m going to have to live with the fact that I denied it for the rest of my life.”  
“Denied what? That we’re Strangers? I think you’ve made that perfectly clear.”  
“Shut up, Dan, just shut up.”  
“Why? You were mean to me today, and you yelled at me, and told me that I’m not even allowed to think or wish that we were Soulmates, and now I’m allowed to get angry for it, frankly I’d even say that-”  
“I said, shut up,” I say, and I lean across the grass between us, and with no one but the trees and the stream and the stars and the moon to watch us, I kiss him.  
And he kisses me back.  
And we lie there, under the canopy of trees, and laugh, at how incredibly wrong we were.

**Author's Note:**

> tell me what you think and leave kudos if you liked it!


End file.
